Iskender did not argue. His mother's note of angry lamentation, in strange accordance with his feelings at that moment, condoned the sharpness of her words, which hardly reached him. The failure of the missionaries to see the merit in his work showed ignorance, but was their own affair; the omission to say "thank you" for his gift was downright rudeness. Their open contempt of his little masterpiece rankled hot in his mind. He vowed before Allah never again to seek to please a Frank and risk such insult. Henceforth he would cleanse his mouth whenever he so much as passed in the street near one of that accursed race.
With pride he called himself a Nazarene, a native Christian of the land, preferring the insolent domination of the Muslim, his blood-relative, to the arrogance of so-called Christian strangers.
Returning home, he told Nesîbeh of his determination to start next morning early for the Holy City. His bride was glad, for she had feared much from his visit to the missionaries, and longed to remove him far from their hellish wiles.
Two years later, when Allah had given him a male child by Nesîbeh, Iskender visited his wife's father in the spring-time. He arrived on foot leading the donkey, on which his wife sat with the baby in her arms. An excited group stood out beneath the ilex-tree. They shouted "Praise to Allah!" The mother of Iskender ran and seized the baby, and rocking it in her arms, poured forth her hoard of tidings. Asad ebn Costantîn was married--had Iskender heard?--to a great lady of the English, a virgin strictly guarded, the only child of rich and honoured parents. Ah, the cunning devil! The people there at the Mission were furious, he might believe; the more so that Asad was bringing his bride to visit them as an equal--he, the son of Costantîn, who fetched the water! Ah, they were well repaid for their treatment of Iskender; and they knew it!
"Be sure I have!" replied Iskender cheerfully. Opening one of the saddlebags he produced it, wrapped in a linen cloth, which he removed. A howl of delight went up from all the company.
"Ma sh' Allah! It is Mar Jiryis himself!" "May we be helped through him!" "Now our church will wear a richer and more modish look!" exclaimed one and another.